


Interlude

by MissyRivers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, first time author, healthy!steve, one solitary dick joke, points to those who find the dick joke, pre-azzano, so many nerves, trying to approximate an accent is tough, what is even happening?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-03 21:26:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14578011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissyRivers/pseuds/MissyRivers
Summary: Steve and Bucky, away at war, take a moment to sit and talk.





	Interlude

**Author's Note:**

> Suppose, for a minute, that Steve was healthy. Still full of fury at the injustices of the world, still getting in fights he cant handle on his own (even though he swears he can), so Bucky is still following him everywhere. And when Pearl Harbor happens, they both enlist, and manage to stay in the same unit all the way to France.

For two kids from New York, the pine forests in France are a revelation of greenery. The smell, the feel of years of fallen needles under their boots, beads of tacky sap picked off trunks as they march past, is new and amazing. 

They’ve stepped away from the campfires, the men there understanding their need for a few minutes of privacy. A nod, a mug of warm liquid (calling it soup would be too kind, even with the loose definition allowed by men raised during the Depression) handed off, and they walk side by side into the forest.

When the steady murmur of a half-dozen voices fades away, they find a likely tree and hunker beneath it. Backs press up against the trunk, legs stretch out with matching groans. Bucky digs in his pocket for his pack of smokes, while Steve sighs and looks around them, marveling at the view. Calling their position a hill would be generous, but they can see thru the trees around them for a goodly distance, and the sight near takes his breath away. 

“I never thought there were this many trees in the whole damn world.” he sighs.

A snort comes from his best friend. “What, you think they get rationed too? Only 15 trees per square acre or some shit?”

He shoves at him good-naturedly. “Good luck enforcen’ that. Gonna pull a Paul Bunyan after this is all over?”

“Ha! You could dull a world a’ axes on this forest and not make a dent. The sap would flood Times Square. Nah, I’ll leave the job to the next fool who wanders thru.”

“Well, what do you want to do after all this?”

A sardonic eyebrow is raised while Bucky puffs and blows out a plume of smoke. If Steve lets his eyes linger on his mouth around the cig, there’s no one here to call him on it, and he jerks his gaze away quickly anyway when Bucky continues, “You know what they say: ‘there’s only two ways to go: dead and straight to hell, or straight to hell and dead.’” *

“Come on, don’t be like that. We’ll make it. Both of us. Return home the triumphant heroes, get all the dames fallin’ at our feet – it’ll be like nothen’ has changed.” Steve tried his best to inject the flavor of a radio announcer into his voice, but his Yorker twang just wasn’t cutting it, and it fell flat. Grimacing, he soldiered on. “Remember Mary?”

“Which Mary, Steve?”

“You rat.” Steve knocks his shoulder up against Bucky. “Mary O’Shane. The Mary you went steady with for 3 months.”

“Oh, that Mary. I thought you meant Sister Mary, back at the boy’s home. Or perhaps Mary Flatly, that you had 2 dates with before she turned her nose up at you. Or even Mary Malarkey, the grocer’s daughter, who wouldn’t give you the time a’ day after she caught you doodlin’ on your first date.”

“I was bored! She didn’t want to dance, but wouldn’t talk to me when I tried to get a conversation goin’. I wasn’t gonna leave her in a lurch, walk out on her early, but come on, what was I supposed to do?”

“Pick a better subject to draw than the skirts dancin’.”

“But the way they were moven’…gettin’ the swirls and curves right was a hell of a thing…I almost had it too, ‘fore she knocked into my shoulder on her way out the door. She was solid!” Steve sighs, leaning his head back against the rough bark. “Sure do miss seein’ ‘em, though. God, when was the last time you saw a lady?”

“At your moms.”

“Dammit, Buck!”

“Hey, you said lady, and I meant it! Your ma was a real lady, no-one could measure up to her. I was plum terrified of her – all five foot four inches of blond haired, blue eyed Irish fury with a wooden spoon and flour-dusted apron. She was really somethen’.”

“Well, I guess I’ll forgive you stoppen’ my damn heart then. She…she really was somethen’. I hope she and my pops are happy up there.” Steve stops and swallows hard. Cornflower-blue eyes meet steel-gray, and Steve has to blink furiously. 

Bucky is quick to speak up with a consoling tone. “We’ll make it home, just you see. And you can show up that Mary Malarkey – she’ll be steamin’ in her stockin’s to have missed her chance at you.” He quirks up one corner of his mouth in a smirk. “Have to sift ‘em like wheat, find you a good gal to settle down with. Raise a brood of kids for me to spoil.”

“Ah, you’ll be the one with the littles – with all your sisters, practically raisen’ ‘em yourself after your pop…well, you love kids. You couldn’t go and stay a confirmed bachelor. All’a New York’d riot! Nah, I’ll be next door to you, headin’ out to work, callen’ goodbye to your missus, lil’ Stevie hangen’ off her leg, and we’ll go walkin’ down the street together, same as always.”

“Lil’ Stevie, huh? What makes you think I’d name one of my kids after you, punk?”

“It’s the best name goin’ ‘round, is all! Plus you’ll owe me - I figure you’ll be neck-deep in debt to me by the time all this is over." 

"Me, in debt to you? I’ve pulled you out of how many dicey spots by now?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Back alleys in Brooklyn don’t count.”

“Who said I had to go that far back to find you making trouble? I swear, doesn’t matter which side of the Atlantic we’re on, Steve, I always find you face down in the dirt, tryin’ to shake some sense back into yourself after having the wind knocked outta ya. Loosin’ fight if I ever saw one – you never did have two wits to rub together.”

“I’ll rub your wit!”

Both men freeze for a moment, then a startled guffa heaves out of Steve before a giggle from Bucky makes them both turn away, red and laughing together once again.

“You were gonna say somethin’ ‘bout Mary?” Bucky chokes out, trying to bring the conversation back around. He knows they’ll have to return to camp soon, but this moment feels too idealistic to let go of just yet.

“Hmm? Oh, ya. Was just ‘memberin’ what she said, that one double-date we all went on – her cousin was in from Illinois, that real wispy brunette? Brown eyes you said looked like little pebbles after a rain washes thru? What was her name?”

“She was your date – you tellen’ me you can’t remember, Steve?”

“You were the one complimenten’ her up and down the street! Thought you were tryen’ to trade gals for a minute. Was gearen’ up to clock you, till we got ta the theater and you and Mary started neckin’.”

“I swear Rogers, you know how to ramble away a day. You ever gonna tell me what Mary said that was so interesten’?”

“It wasn’t that interesten’. Just had me thinken’.”

“Enlighten me already, dammit.” Bucky puffs away at his Lucky Strike, savoring the taste and the burn in his lungs. Back home, working on the docks, he’d smoke over his lunch break to dull the hunger pangs from having to skip meals. Steve had never taken a liking to smoking – the first time he tried he’d coughed until he turned blue, and swore it felt just like that one winter he’d come down with pneumonia.

“She was talken’ ‘bout a paintin’ she’d seen at the museum. How badly she wished she could go to Paris, see the works of the great masters. And I was thinken’, here we are in France…who knows, maybe on the way home, we’ll be able to stop and see some. You can tell her all about them. Be nice to have some stories that wouldn’t scare her off for good.”

“Don’t lie, Steve – we both know you wanna go for you, not for some half-baked notion of gettin’ me back with some gal back home. You were the one suggestin’ we go to the museum any time we couldn’t afford seein’ the Dodgers. Thing’s goin’ a different way, you woulda loved bein’ an artist. Remember those comics you used to draw when we were kids?”

“That never woulda gone anywhere, Buck. No-one can afford livin’ off drawen’ nowadays.”

“I said ‘if things were different’ didn’t I? You still got mud in your ears or somethin’?"

“You wanna play the ‘if only’ game. Really. You.” Steve looks skeptically at his friend. “You’re the one tellen’ the guys not to start when they talk about their hopes and dreams. What’s changed your mind now, huh?”

“Maybe it’s all this beauty liften’ my spirits. All these damn trees, birds chirpin’ and shit. It’s like Snow White herself could come walkin’ out with her apple.” Bucky's shoulders are bunched up nearly to his ears. Steve regrets the way the conversation has turned, and wants the easy joy their laughter had summoned to come back. It’s getting harder and harder to pull Bucky out of his head, and his smiles are so rare -

“Shit!” Bucky's neglected cigarette drops from his fingers, having burnt down to singe his knuckle. He stamps a foot on it quickly, and brings his hand up to his mouth to tongue at the sore spot.

“You all right?” Steve reaches and grabs his wrist, bringing it towards him to look at the burn.

“Don’t you go mother-hennin’ me, Nanny Rogers – save that for the guys when they actually need it, hmm? It’s just warm, ‘ll be fine by mornin’.”

“Ya, ya. Watch, you’ll forget and wipe your ass, end up with an infection, lose your damn hand, and punch your ticket home before me to woo all the skirts behind my back.”

While Bucky is coming up with a snarky reply, the boys hear a rustling and look over to see Dum-dum come walking out from between some bushes. “Rogers, Barnes – time to get moving. Sarge wants us to get to base before dark, so we’ll have to hoof it. But,” his eyes sparkle with humor, “George says he’ll teach us a new marching song he learned from a guy who’d da was in the first war – says it’s guarantied to piss off the CO.”**

“Well, anythin’ to get that stiff-neck hoppin’ is good with me!” Steve perks up. “We’ll be right down, Dum-dum, thanks!” With a jaunty salute, Dum-dum turns and vanishes back down the slope.

Bucky stands briskly, smacking at his ass to get the pine needles off. A mischievous glint perks up in Steve’s eye, and he says all-too-innocently “You missed a few, there, Buck.”

“Oh?” Bucky throws an unamused look over his shoulder at Steve. “You just wanna laugh at me smacken’ myself hither and yon, I know your tricks, ya sneak. Nice try.”

“No, honest, you’ve got one right…here!”

With a yelp, Bucky jumps and spins to kick at his friend, rubbing at the pinched spot. “You rotten shit! I ought’a beat the tar out’a ya! Get back here!”

Scrabbling on all fours, Steve circles the trunk, lurches haphazardly to his feet and takes off for the camp, Bucky quietly but fervently turning the air blue in hot pursuit behind him. And for just those few moments, all the worries over an uncertain future drop away, leaving two boys forced to become men too soon, hidden away in a pine forest thousands of miles from home.

______________________________________________________________________

*I lifted this from the Vietnam war – “time to DASH to the SHED” was an army phrase shouted by COs before heading into battle.  
**Here’s a link to a recording of a soldier singing the song in question – it’s earie, so listener beware. While this particular marching song was from WW1 and this story is set in WW2, its known that soldiers would carry-over bits learned from their older male relatives who’d fought in the first war. Since both my boys had their dads serve, it makes sense they’d recognize it and sing along. https://youtu.be/UA730QtjOBE

**Author's Note:**

> I've never posted anything, anywhere, so I'm extremely nervous, please forgive me.  
> I'm enrolled in a creative writing class in college, and was prompted to write...anything. So, given that I've been consuming a lot of Stucky fanfic, I thought it'd be a great opportunity to try and contribute something. And...this happened.  
> I didn't want it to be too obviously Steve and Bucky, so I'd changed their names for class - went back in and fixed those, and viola!  
> It's really a very simple piece. Any advice from anyone would be awesome and very much appreciated :)


End file.
